Chapter 2, ‘The Embodied Letter’, examines the embodied consciousness in selected letters of the writers and painters. Drawing on critical thought in the medical humanities and in sensory studies, the chapter investigates the epistolary articulacy of body and mind through modes that span the documentary and the fantastic. First, the work of the sensorium is explored through the epistolary entanglement of the senses – from touch and taste to kinesthetics and proprioception. The chapter examines epistolary representations of wellbeing and illness, stories of embarrassing bodies, chronicles of everyday ‘troubles’, and the letterish discussion of public health, self-care, work, and leisure. The preoccupation with mental health and mental illness comes sharply into relief in epistolary evocations of boredom, exasperation, and depression, and their physical manifestations. Whilst such instances echo nineteenth-century literary evocations of spleen, they speak powerfully to some of our pressing contemporary concerns. End-of-life letters reveal a profound engagement with finitude through fragmentary narratives of struggle, separation, and mourning threaded with sustaining resilience.

Artists have painted monumental images on walls throughout time. Images as diverse as the stampeding bulls and horses in the prehistoric caves of Lascaux, Dordogne, France (c. 17000 BCE, Figure 0.1), the enigmatic scenes at the pre-Columbian Maya site of San Bartolo in Guatemala (c. 300 BCE–50 CE), and the languid Bodhisattvas from the fifth century in the Ajanta cave 1 in India (Figure 0.2), decorated tombs, shrines, temples and houses. Fragmentary survivals from Greece, Crete, Rome, and early Christian Europe attest to a continuous tradition of mural painting in the West. Wall paintings reflected profound social change by embracing new imagery, formats, and styles. Striking examples survive in the late Roman catacombs. Murals in the catacomb of Saints Peter and Marcellinus in Rome from the late third or early fourth century CE were painted in a simplified Roman technique and depict images, such as the Good Shepherd, that appealed to pagan, Jewish, and Christian worshippers.

Chapter 3 describes the imagery and production of the murals of the Old Testament in the Camposanto of Pisa completed in by Benozzo Gozzoli in 1484. Archbishop Filippo de’ Medici’s (1426–74) role in the commission is placed in the expanded context of his patronage and diplomacy throughout a long, distinguished career. These murals, painted during Pisa’s subjection to Florence, enhanced an impressive locus of Pisan identity and pride, while signalling the political reality of Florentine control.

Chapter 1 examines Agnolo Gaddi’s work between 1392 and 1395 in the chapel in Prato cathedral, which was built to house the Virgin’s Belt, the most important relic in the city. Primary sources allow reconstruction of the ceremony during which the precious relic of the Virgin’s Belt was displayed to the public. The monumental narratives of the origins of the Holy Belt and its journey to Prato celebrated Prato’s favored status as custodian of the relic. Detailed surviving payments, here published in full for the first time, reveal a narrative of the chapel’s construction and decoration and bring to light how the artist, Agnolo Gaddi, collaborated with Florentine and Pratese artisans in the enterprise. Agnolo’s  professional and personal connections with the Pratese Opera, and the social identities of its members, expose a rich network of relationships in which the commission unfolded.

Chapter 2 focuses on the extensive decoration of the Camposanto in Pisa, the monumental cemetery adjacent to the cathedral complex. Here the author describes the ceremonies associated with death, burial and remembrance that animated the vast spaces. Unlike previous assumptions of a single program that from the beginning guided the mural decoration, it is proposed here that the wall paintings, completed during three discrete periods, reflected the changing social and religious significance of the Camposanto as a communal burial space open to all classes of Pisans. The murals of the life of the Pisan patron saint Rainerius were begun by Andrea di Buonaiuti (also called Andrea da Firenze) and completed by Antonio Veneziano in 1386. Commisssioned by Pietro Gambacorta, the signore of Pisa, they celebrated Pisa’s identity as a vibrant polity with a venerable history, against the backdrop of a fast-changing political reality.

Chapter 4 pivots to Umbria, where Fra Filippo Lippi painted the apse decoration in the cathedral of Spoleto between 1466 and 1469. Here again, primary and secondary sources reveal the ceremonies that took place in the cathedral and highlight the relationship of the apse paintings and the venerated Madonna icon of the cathedral. The bishop of Spoleto, Berardo Eroli, played a leading role in the commission, which is set in the context of his art patronage in Umbria and Rome. From the copious documentation for the Spoleto project – here published in full for the first time – emerges evidence that Eroli conceived the Coronation murals as a magnificent setting for the Madonna icon of the cathedral and its display on holy days, especially the feast of the Virgin’s Assumption, August 15. In his vision and his active involvement in the project during its execution, Eroli sought to link the Spoleto Duomo visually and liturgically with the venerable basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome.

Florence was known in the Renaissance for its cutthroat competition and hypercritical environment, which sustained the city’s reputation for superb craftsmanship and innovative design. Yet many of its most successful artists worked for long periods outside the city. Vasari states that, to make a reputation at home, an artist had to travel abroad, to execute highly visible and well-compensated projects commissioned by prestigious patrons. Ambrogio Lorenzetti was “called outside his homeland to honor another; and if by chance [that other place] is more noble in customs, mind and ability, he, once unhappy, is filled with joy in seeing himself awarded, embraced and largely honored.”